Serres Donut Shop (Syracuse)

So, the disclaimer here is that Serres does supposedly make both yeast and cake donuts, but they hadn’t yet made any yeast donuts at 8am on a Thursday when Duc popped in to get our donuts, so we could only review their cake donuts.

Not sure why you wouldn’t have the most basic and most-easily-dunkable donut available at donut rush hour, but what are you going to do. Can’t exactly pop back up to Syracuse to grab another donut later in the day. So if you’ve had an incredible yeast donut from Serres and think we need to go back and try it, please let us know.

The Tasting

The appearance of these donuts is pretty spectacular, really. They are large, and their toppings are generous and quite photogenic.

Powdered Sugar

The powdered sugar donut is particularly beautiful, and has more powdered sugar than there is natural snow on Greek Peak in the winter (hardy har har). Breaking into it, we are afraid of how heavy and dry it feels.

It’s super crusty, which we both like, and the cake is absorbing the flavor of the powdered sugar nicely. We can’t really grab the inside to taste it on its own, which is a huge indicator of dryness.

Peanut

The peanut-covered donut has a very pleasantly textured icing or glaze that adds crustiness and holds the peanuts on, but the inside is even drier than the powdered-sugar donut.

The icing has the potential to bring a nice sweetness to the overall flavor, but instead it’s overpowering the peanuts, which lack flavor. Salt? Freshness? Honey-roasting goodness? The peanuts need something. And the icing is sweet, sweet, sweet.

Plain Cake

Plain cake donut? Laurel bites in with an open mind and exclaims, “What’s the point?!”

It is dry, crumbly, and really, straight up not good. “That’s gross,” she adds. Maybe a bit dramatic. But there’s really nothing else to say.

Coconut

The coconut donut has the same dry inside as the rest, and plays out like the peanut donut. The icing that is holding the coconut on is very sweet, the coconut is also very sweet, and it’s just too much sweetness.

We are disappointed. “Shit, man,” Laurel says.

Texture

Duc: These donuts were all way too dry for me, and really crumbly. The peanut topping wasn’t crunchy enough. The nice and crunchy thick crust of the powdered sugar donut was desirable, but that was the only positive texture note.Score: 2.5/5

Laurel: They look so great from the outside, it’s really a shame how dry the insides are. The texture of the powdered sugar was the best because it had the nice crispy crust, which contrasted with the dryness of the sugar, which I frequently have a hard time with. If the inside had been lighter and more moist, that powdered sugar donut could have been a winner for me.Score: 2/5

Flavor

Duc: Sugar on fried dough is always good, but this was completely unremarkable, and there really isn’t much else to say.Score: 2.5/5

Laurel: They had potential, but they were all one-note, and that note was sugar. I did like the flavor of the powdered sugar donut, but the rest were somehow bland, despite being way too sweet.Score: 2.5/5

Overall Thoughts

We ended up wondering if all of these were a day old, except for the powdered sugar donut, which was slightly moister and had the nice crust that we clearly fawned over (and frankly saved Serres from a much lower score). Unfortunately, even if oldness is why these had such a bad texture, if that’s what you’re going to get when you buy donuts at Serres, that’s what we have to review. We’re sorry. We really wanted to like these.